DEATH OF AN AGENT is the fourth “kiwi spy story” featuring ex-detective / spycatcher Dan Delaney. Historical crime fiction, based on real-life events this is a series that’s been getting better and better, with this outing pleasingly comical in some places, as well as a rip-roaring yarn into the bargain.
Goodreads review by Australian crime reviewer Karen Chisholm.
That is the best opening to a review of any of my 60 books I can recall. It was awarded four stars, one better than the three Karen gave my first two Dan Delaney thrillers The Death Ray Debacle and The Plot to Kill Peter Fraser. As usual with Karen, there is a thorough review following. It was published on 16 July 2020 and languished unknown to me at the bottom of the thread for the novel on Goodreads.
My recent joining of the Goodreads Author Programme has unsurprisingly been the opening of a Pandora’s Box of the good, the bad and the amusingly ugly. For this blog I am concerned with the fiction reviews. The worst and amusingly so was of From My Cold Dead Hands by Kelda back in 9/11: ‘Started reading the intro and it was boring reading, put it down & picked it up a week later cause it was the only thing I had to read, suffered through the intro & got into the story which was really good.’ Curiously, in her Goodreads post Kelda gave the book a respectable three stars.
Better than the two-star scalding of Whakaari by Philippa in another 9/11 Goodreads review. She thought this eco-thriller confusing, overwritten, laden with adjectives, too many characters and unnecessary clutter. She allowed it had energy and momentum. Whew! No dinner invite for her. The other two Goodreads ratings were four stars, so there. But, but, maybe she has some valid points. It was my first novel. I have always been a slow starter.
In this annus horribilis of 2011 Stan posted for my teenage wasteland novel Shaking 1960 a bald two stars. I recall a friend said the title should have been Shagging 1960, which might have fared better – or not.
I was tempted to pull up several five-star Goodreads reviews for my non-fiction just to cheer me up. But then I recalled visiting our great Kiwi novelist Maurice Shadbolt when he got a phone call and slammed the phone on the caller. After a burst of ripe informal language, he explained that Michael King had rung to say he had written a bad review for Maurice’s latest book, but he wanted to know Maurice was still in his view a good writer, usually. Reviewing and particularly of fiction seems to attract the best and the worst.
And many shades between. Karen’s reviews of my first two Dan Delaney novels are not bad, but not as good as the generally positive ones from New Zealand reviewers. On the other hand, Death of an Agent is what Phil Spencer said of most of the Kiwi super homes he visited, this is next level.
She goes on to write: ‘More evident in this outing is a really strong sense of slight tongue in cheek fun. McGill seems to have hit a sweet spot with this plot – which sounds manic – but actually reads really well, and very engagingly. The really interesting aspect of this one in particular is the moral dilemma that Dan’s presented by his personal relationship with Ru Patterson and his daughter … this is a series that’s been quietly developing away, creating great historical settings for some fictional (and not so fictional) thriller plots which are all informative, entertaining and well worth the time.’
Now I have another insecure writer’s thought, that Karen will be disappointed by the three further Delaney outings. There was one online Kiwi reviewer who thought Dan a delightful protagonist in his first appearance, but by the last one she thought he patronised his wife. You can’t expect always to get the best from reviewers; while hoping you will not bring out their worst.